What I learned from NLS data

Using NLS data, my colleagues and I have studied wage discrimination against obese workers. We have confirmed that obese workers do face lower wages than thinner workers, but that much of this difference is due to the higher health expenditures of obese workers. Surprisingly, in jobs without health insurance, obese and thinner workers earn the same wages on average, which suggests that employer-provided health insurance plays a key role in wage outcomes for obese workers.

Why I chose NLS data

The NLSY79 cohort is unique in the richness of employment information and key health status indicators like obesity. It allows us to track a large national sample over many years, and observe how changes in body weight track with changes in employment outcomes like wages and employer health insurance provision.

Ohio State University Center for Human Resource Research

Resources

This site was created at the Center for Human Resource Research (CHRR) at The Ohio State University to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS). The NLS is a program of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CHRR has conducted the NLS since the program began in 1965, in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau (from 1965 to 2003) and NORC at the University of Chicago (from 1978 to the present).